Speaking Activities for the Classroom

Hello, I’d Like to Book a Flight... 

 

Put SDS in pairs with their chairs sitting opposite one another. One student 

who wants to book a flight has the list of flight possible destinations and is 

telephoning the travel office for information. The other student works in the 

travel office and has a list of all the departure and arrival times, flight numbers, 

etc. The conversation should go something like this : 

 

First speaker : “Hello, I’d like to fly to Athens next Saturday. Do you have a 

flight available? Can you give me the flight information?” 

 

Second speaker : “Certainly Sir. We have flight number OA4527, departing 

London at 08:45 and arriving in Athens at 13:20. Would that be suitable?” 

 

First : “Oh, yes thank you. That would be suitable. Can I book now? Is it 

possible to book over the phone?” 

 

Second : “Certainly Sir. Could you give me your name and credit card 

information?”... and so on and so on. SDS should improvise their 

conversations. 

 

When the first student has booked, he can change roles with the other one, 

who now becomes the tourist and inquires about a different destination and 

passports, visas, check in times and anything else that comes to mind. 

See destinations as follows. Flight information is on the next page : 

 

 

Antwerp Geneva  Paris 

Amsterdam  

Glasgow 

Rotterdam  

Athens Galloway 

Shanghai 

Brussels Jersey  Singapore 

Birmingham Le 

Havre 

Southampton 

Chicago Manchester 

Toronto 

Copenhagen Munich 

Telaviv 

Dublin Marseilles 

Utrecht 

Duesseldorf Nice 

Warsaw 

Essen New 

York 

Zurich 

Edinburgh Newcastle   

Friedrichshafen Ostende 

 

Is there any place else you’d like to go? If so write it in the empty space. 

 

189

Flight Plans 

 

 

Destination Flight 

number 

Departure  Arrival 

Antwerp BRA639 11:10 

12:50 

Amsterdam KL543 

09: 

00 

11:15 

Athens OA4527 08:45  13:20 

Brussels SN880  07:30 

  09:40 

Birmingham BA 

5432 

07:35 

O8:15 

Chicago AA22  10:10  14:45 

Copenhagen BA333 

10: 

40 

13:55 

Dublin IA 

543 06:00  07:05 

Dusseldorf 

LH 8312 

10: 10 

12: 15 

Essen LH6675 

13:40  15:55 

Edinburgh LC 

123 

16:20 

17:50 

Friedrichshafen LH7878 

19:50 

21:40 

Geneva BA 

8305 05:40  10:05 

Glasgow BA 

5773 22:20 

01:15 

Galaway AL 

5531 11:40 

14:10 

Jersey VE 

6432 

12:30  14:00 

Le Havre 

AA 8749 

19: 25 

21:45 

Manchester BA 

6994  23:20 

01:25 

Munich LH6190 20:20  23:50 

Marsailles AF5545  18:40 

20:00 

Nice AF9687 

21:15 24:00 

New York 

BA333 

10:10 

12:00 

Newcastle 

BA1326  

 05:45 

06:40 

Ostende BA5183  07:20 

09:30 

Paris AF3287 

20:10 22:45 

Rotterdam BRA 

4434 07:30 

09:35 

Shanghai CA 

6676 10:40 

02:20 

Singapore SQ2859  24:10 

15:40 

Southampton BA3362 

14:20 

1:406 

Toronto AC5773 12:00 

14:15 

Telaviv IA5778 10:35  15:40 

Utrecht HA7777 11:30  13:40 

Warsaw PA6676 10: 

45  14:50 

Zurich SR334  08:00  10:55 

Take care to speak clearly, especially when you say numbers. 

 

190

Where in the World Are We? 

 

  Read the name of a city and draw an arrow to show/tell what country it is 

located in. Please note how to pronounce these names in English. 

 

Perth Australia 

Jedda Germany 

Oslo USA 

Milan Switzerland 

Kyoto Italy 

Copenhagen Germany 

Dusseldorf Denmark 

Coventry Saudi 

Arabia 

Brussels Japan 

Adelaide Turkey 

Ankara Australia 

Frankfurt Belgium 

Geneva England 

Cork Israel 

Edinburgh Canada 

Istanbul Scotland 

Halifax Lebanon 

Montreal France 

Nice Turkey 

Osaka Ireland 

Quebec Canada 

Marseilles USA 

Beirut Egypt 

Jerusalem China 

Philadelphia Japan 

Durbin Canada 

 

Tangier Russia 

Acapulco France 

Jakarta South 

Africa 

Shanghai Morocco 

Cairo Norway 

St. Petersburg 

Brazil 

Boston Indonesia 

Brazilia Mexico 

 

191

Where in the World Are We Now? 

 

Some people really like these geography games, so here is yet another one. 

Match the places listed on the left with a location in the right hand margin. 

 

 

Antwerp New 

Zeeland 

Lima sol 

Peru 

Oxford Finland 

Warsaw India 

Vienna Cyprus 

Hamburg South 

Korea 

Aukland Belgium 

Lumbai Austria 

Rotterdam England 

Seoul Sweden 

Islamabad Poland 

Miami USA 

Glasgow Holland 

Detroit Germany 

Lima  

Pakistan 

Honolulu Scotland 

Colombo Austria 

Izmir Michigan 

Manchester Holland 

Innsbruck Greece 

Amsterdam Columbia 

Bogota Turkey 

Kabul Sri 

Lanka 

Mecca Hawaii 

Athens England 

Budapest Romania 

Casablanca  

Morocco 

Oman Afghanistan 

Birmingham Saudi 

Arabia 

Buffalo England 

Istanbul Jordan 

Bucharest Hungary 

 

Let’s hope your teacher knows all the answers; otherwise look in an atlas. 

 

192

Chapter Six : Finding the Right Words 

 

In this chapter, we will be trying to find the correct words or expressions to 

name or explain an idea, a feeling, a desire, a wish, a need, etc. 

 

By and large, we should search, first, in our minds to find the required words 

and expressions. If we have tried our best and can’t remember or think of the 

vocabulary that is needed, we can also discuss the problem with our friends, in 

pairs or groups, thereby learning-by-doing and by helping one-another. 

 

When the above student interaction does not provide a wished for result, 

student can look up the word(s) in a Thai-English dictionary, an English 

dictionary, a thesaurus, or English dictionary website, or elsewhere. This means 

that, generally, a good part of class-time should be spent by students looking 

things up and talking about them.  

 

After the students have finished or when the time is up, the teacher can ask the 

students to read out their answers aloud, correcting mistake and pronunciation 

where needed. 

 

It is imperative to remember that all of these exercises are intended as the basis 

for speaking in the classroom, so the student’ preparation time should only be a 

lead-up to the performance of the main task of getting the SDS to read and talk 

to communicate their results. 

 

Teachers who just hand out the sheets and let the students work on their own 

without hearing them talk and without interacting with them should be seen as 

shirking their duty. Many teachers just like to give out an assignment to keep 

students busy while he/she does some marking or grading or daydreaming. 

Once again, it should be stressed that the teacher is there as a helper and 

should keep his/her mind on the speaking activity and the students. 

 

Teachers will certainly not want to do all of the included tasks with their 

classes. There are many too many handout sheets in this book for any teacher 

to ever use then all in the classroom. Teachers should, rather, browse through 

each chapter to find a topic appropriate for the situation or, use them as 

models as a basis for thinking up new topics. Better yet, use the sheets to 

inspire your students to create their own vocabulary-learning-tasks, in a way 

that will help them follow their interests and practice in learning skills to better-

prepare them for the days when they will enter their professional careers. 

 

193

Talking Based-on Vocabulary Words 

 

Write twenty topic names on small scraps of paper and put them in a small box 

on the desk at the front of the room. Then, call the students to the front of the 

class one-by-one and get each one to pick a scrap with a word/topic on it. The 

first one has to stand up and speak freely on that topic for three minutes.  

 

When the first one is finished, he/she chooses a second one who must go to 

the front and do the same thing, and so on. Here are some words to start with, 

but it may be better to let them choose topics that are more suitable. 

 

 

 

Fast food 

 

 

 

 Traffic jams 

 

 

 

Boyfriends 

 

 

 

Part-time jobs 

 

 

 

Bangkok 

 

 

 

Movies 

 

 

 

Magazines 

 

 

 

Holidays 

 

 

 

Family 

 

 

 

Lipstick 

 

 

 

Brand names 

 

 

 

Newspapers 

 

 

 

Internet 

 

 

 

Pets 

 

 

 

 

194

 “A” is for Abacus. “B” is for Botulism. 

 

Write out the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, on twenty-six scraps of paper 

with one letter on each slip, and let each student draw one slip out of a box. 

Once the student sees the letter, for example, “A” he/she must write down as 

many words starting with “A” as possible, with a ten-minute time limit : 

A 

An 

Art 

After 

Apple 

Angry 

Apathy 

Anxious 

If you get the letter “B,” try to write as many words as possible in ten minutes: 

B 

Be 

Bee 

Been 

Brain 

Blonde 

Breezes 

Brunette 

The purpose of the game is to see who can list and read out the most words.  

If you get letter “H,” write as many “H” words as you can think of: 

H 

Ha 

Had 

Hand 

Horror 

Handle 

Housing 

Handsome 

If you pick a paper with “x,y,z, or q” put it back in the box and draw another. 

The words can have any number of letters. The words you see above were only 

chosen for layout purposes to make the page look interesting. Another fun task 

is to write a list that looks like a pyramid, beginning with “P” at the top and 

ending with the word perspective as the eleventh word in the list: 

P 

Pa 

etc. 

 

195

Write a List of Words to Describe... 

 

Try to say only nice things. 

boys girls 

mothers 

fathers 

rough pretty 

 

 

tough nice   

 

dirty fine   

 

loud  

gentle 

 

 

playful sweet 

 

 

active cute   

 

devious coy 

 

 

disobedient soft 

 

 

rowdy polite 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

soldiers policemen politicians drivers 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

managers employees  maids security 

guards 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or let each student choose a word for this task and then exchange his/her word 

with another student who must give a list of descriptive adjectives. 

 

196

Word-Hints and Gestures 

 

Put the students in pairs and give the first person a list of words that the 

second person must guess, based on word-hints suggested by the first person’s 

definitions or gestures. For example, the first student may say something like, 

“It is a big book in which we look up words.” The second will say, “dictionary,” 

Now try this one, “It is a scanty two piece ladies’ swim suit named after a 

Pacific atoll.” Can you guess? Bikini? Yes. Some appropriate words may be 

seenthe list on the left margin but students may use the empty boxes to make 

up their own lists of words, appropriate to the level and interests of the class. 

You can even have the pairs compete against one another to see who guesses 

the most words. Use a pair of scissors to cut out the list you want to use. 

 

Rouge 

    

Valentine 

    

Rose 

    

Bird 

    

Pig 

    

Tissue 

    

Temple 

    

Taxi 

    

Saxophone 

    

Perfume 

    

Coat 

hanger 

    

Wallet 

    

Wig 

    

Motorcycle 

    

Cup of tea 

 

 

 

 

Guitar 

    

Hairpin 

    

Kitten 

    

Pilot 

    

Mechanic 

    

Laptop 

    

Knife 

    

Hamburger 

    

Chicken 

    

 

Another thing to do is have each pair make up a word list and then exchange 

lists with another pair. Vocabulary should not, however, be too hard. 

 

197

Whispering Words Along-the-Line 

 

Break the class into groups of five and have them stand in line, one behind the 

other, in a line facing the board. The teacher then whispers a word into the ear 

of the person at the back of the line, whoI in turn taps on the shoulder of the 

one in front of him/her and, then, whispers the word in his/her ear. Then, that 

person does it to the next, and so on and so on, all the way to the person at the 

front, who finally writes the word on the board. It’s surprising how the words 

can change in the process. Some examples to use might be :  

 

Fish 

   

Danger 

   

Lover 

   

Romance 

   

Tip 

   

Thief 

   

Sneeze 

   

Butterfly 

   

Boxer 

   

Chips 

   

Sheep 

   

Slips 

   

Bubble 

   

Dancer 

   

Boat 

   

Blind 

   

Deaf 

   

Scream 

   

Election 

   

Suspect 

   

Lion 

   

Gorilla 

   

Snake 

   

Lips 

   

Sleep 

   

Rover 

   

Lady 

   

Scrape 

   

  

Use the blank spaces to make lists of new words that are hard to pronounce. 

 

198

Preferences 

 

Number your preferences concerning these modes of personal transportation. 

 

type preference 

advantages 

disadvantages 

Car 

   

Pickup 

   

Bicycle 

   

Motorcycle 

   

Camel 

   

Horse 

   

Buffalo 

   

 

 

What kind of public transportation do you prefer? 

 

type preference 

advantages 

disadvantages 

Sky 

train 

   

Underground 

   

Air 

bus 

   

Normal 

bus 

   

Express 

bus 

   

Express 

boat 

   

Longtail 

boat 

   

Taxi 

   

Tuk 

tuk 

   

Minibus 

   

Minivan 

   

Other? 

   

 

 

How would you like to tour around the world? 

 

type preference 

advantages 

disadvantages 

Plane 

   

Train 

   

Bus 

   

Ship 

   

Automobile 

   

Balloon 

   

 

199

Where Would You Rather Live? 

 

Number your preferences in order, and indicate advantages and disadvantages. 

 

type number 

advantage  disadvantage 

Flat  

 

 

Condominium  

 

 

House   

 

Houseboat  

 

 

Tent  

 

 

Caravan    

 

Cave  

 

 

Under a bridge   

 

 

Tree house 

 

 

 

Palace   

 

 

Which of These Jobs Might You Prefer and Why? 

 

Number preferences in order and indicate the advantages and disadvantages. 

 

job number 

advantage  disadvantage 

Taxi driver 

 

 

 

Singer 

 

 

 

Policeman 

 

 

 

Air hostess 

 

 

 

Tour guide 

 

 

 

Lifeguard    

 

Disc jockey 

 

 

 

Model   

 

Dancer    

 

Social worker 

 

 

 

Salesman    

 

Dishwasher  

 

 

Teacher    

 

Secretary    

 

Driver   

 

Pilot  

 

 

Actor   

 

Soldier   

 

Accountant  

 

 

 

200

What Would You Least Prefer? 

 

What kind of car breakdown would you least prefer?  

 

type 

Number your choices. Why? 

Flat tire 

 

Dead battery 

 

Run out of gas 

 

Overheated radiator 

 

Broken hose pipe 

 

Wet sparkplugs 

 

Faulty windshield wipers 

 

Stuck in the mud 

 

 

What kind of wife/husband would you least like to have? 

 

Bitchy  

Stingy  

Nagging  

Hyper sensitive 

 

Jealous  

Bossy  

Lazy  

Crazy  

Alcoholic  

Unemployed  

 

What kind of boss would you least like to have? 

 

Ungrateful  

Non-compromising  

Unapproachable  

Penny-pinching  

Deceitful  

Stubborn  

Two-faced  

Resentful  

Hateful  

 

Think up some other topics concerning things that you would prefer least. 

 

201